A freind and I headed to South Dakota a couple of weeks ago to extend our season a little longer. We hunted from May 3-6. Little late posting about the trip, but things have been crazy at work.
Like all my trips, nothing can go smooth. We flew out of Birmingham with a connection into Minneapolis and then onto South Dakota. The weather moved in and we had to circle the airport waiting on the weather to clear. They had closed the airport. With only an hour between flights, I knew we were not going to make the next flight. I kept checking my delta app on my phone in the plane (Cool wifi on the plane) and they had re booked us on a later flight. Not good when you still have to drive 160 miles and plan to hut that afternoon. We finally made it to South Dakota and started to drive west. I had forgotten that if you want food, you better get it when you can because it is a long way between places to eat.
Finally we got to Burke and headed out to hunt. We were hunting the Rosebud Indian reservation. We met our guide (mandatory hunt with a tribal guide) he was an older fellow and very cool. Right off the bat we were in birds and we were getting the lay of the land. We called up 5 jakes within 10 yards right out of a creek bottom while we were standing on a finger looking out over the prairie. We didn't shoot them, heck we were not hunting 20 minutes. The rest of the evening we put some birds to bed and made a plan for in the morning.
Friday morning came and we were danger close, we could hear 7 different birds gobbling, the closest was 60 yards from us. We had one big gobbler coming across a pasture gobbling hard when a hen pitched down and walked him the other way. I put that info in the old filing cabinet. Our attention went back to the close birds and we figured they pitched out the top into the hay fields. Sure enough they had pitched out there and were just strutting in the field. A little purr and cluck to get their attention was answered with a double gobble. Then the hens walked straight away from us with the gobblers in tow. About this time the old light bulb went off and the red necks from Alabama changed plans. They didn't want to come to us, we would just go to them. Let the games begin and we went into the spot and stalk/get in front of them mode.
My friend used the lay of the land and was able to crawl up to the birds, but he could not see them. I could see the red head, and thought they were just over the ridge, but they were not. The birds were laying flat in the grass hiding from him. They let him crawl past them. When he stood up to walk back because he didn't see anything the birds waited for him to walk past before they ran off.
While I was glassing another area of the field I kept seeing a red head pop up and go back down. Here again I thought they were just over the crest of the terrain. My friend walked back to me and finally would see the head pop up. He belly crawled out there and he could not see him. Finally when he got on his knees, he saw the gobbler lying flat hiding 10 yards in front of him. He moved closer and when the bird finally got up, he shot him. Not your text book turkey hunt, but one tag filled.
It is wild in that area we were hunting you would have 9 sections (640 acres) that was tribal land and then 4 sections of private land (they called it state land) and then another 6 sections of tribal land.
After he tagged that bird, we went to another area and looked a mile away and there were 5 strutters on top of a ridge. Man you could see forever out there. We got to within 300 yards, slid a decoy up and tossed out a few calls. The gobblers looked, but they would not come. We had the standoff for a couple of hours before the hens walked off the back side and took the gobblers with them.
Back to the area we were at that morning. It was sunny and calm and all you had to do was stand on a high spot and listen, sooner or later one would gobble. Sure enough we heard a couple gobble to our east and listened for another 10 minutes to pinpoint them and head that way. We walked up and down hills and would wait for them to gobble and then keep moving towards them keeping the terrain in our favor. It was like chasing a ghost and they just kept moving and we could not get in front of them. Finally we threw in the towel and had to take a rest. We had walked 3 miles from the truck chasing the birds. While we were sitting there, I walked to an opening and glassed the surrounding area. 500 yards away there was a strutter. We moved around and he was under the only tree in the middle of open prairie. We got within 152 yards of him, but the tall grass that you could crawl in ran out 70 yards from him and his 2 hens. We watched him for 30 minutes and finally had no choice but to call. Ever so soft I purred and just one cluck. He hammered, folded up and started our way. Wow that was cool to see. But then the two hens began walking straight away from us, he turned and followed them. A few more calls and he gave a courtesy gobble and headed off with them. Talk about henned up.
We finally made it back to the truck for some much needed water. I had fallen hard when I tripped over a stick and twisted my knee. Thank the good Lord I did not dislocate my metal hip. Ms. Wicked (my gun) took a hard hit and all I wanted to do was pattern her and make sure the scope was still sited in.
We headed to the gravel pit for me to check the scope and it had not moved. Then off to our guides brothers house to get me a hand full of advil and fill up our water bottles. John looked at us in the truck and said you Bama boys sure like to walk. He was almost happy I had twisted my knee to slow us down.
We went back to where we had seen the five strutters mid day. We had a couple of hours before we planned to set up in the creek bottom and wait for the birds to come through on the way back to the roost. Just before we got there I saw a drove of turkeys in a cut bean field, it too was tribal land and adjacent to the land we saw the birds at that morning. My friend saw a second drove in the same field. So we made plans to get close to them. We parked the truck and started heading to the birds we had seen when I heard a gobbler sound off in the distance to our left. I glassed and saw him walking down a hill into the creek bottom. He was way out there, but I figured heading into the bottom. We had to drop into the bottom to move around on the first birds we had seen and when he gobbled again closer it was time to move. We were finally in front of a traveling bird. We slid into the creek bottom and set up. A few clucks and he hammered back. Not 30 seconds later he was standing there less than 40 yards away. I settled the scope on his head and let Ms. Wicked speak. The #9 Tss hit hard and he didn't even move when he went down. After some photos and tagging the bird we headed back up out of the creek bottom.
While we were standing there talking I looked and the drove of turkeys had moved out of the field and were walking in the grass beside the field. We just laid down and watched them for 10 minutes. They moved back into the field and when I could not see any heads in the binos we went towards them. We had to belly crawl the last 100 yards and got to the fence. We had a clump of grass blocking us and just slid to the left. 2 gobblers were standing there looking at us, but could not figure out what we were. My friend was on the left so he took aim at the left bird and I did the right. We both shot at the same time and had 2 more birds on the ground less than 20 yards.
We were tagged out. We tried to buy some more tags, but it was too late and we could not buy anymore tags.
Saturday was rain wind and hail all day and we just did the tourist thing. It would have been real tough hunting Saturday and Sunday morning with the weather if we had not tagged out.
You could tell the birds were pressured and henned up. Sunday morning we stopped at the casino to eat breakfast. There were several turkey hunters in there and they had been hunting for 4 days and had not killed a bird. They had been hunting the creek bottoms, setting out decoys, calling in the mornings and evenings. We went there with the ideas of a traditional turkey hunt, but changed our tactics when we saw what the birds were doing.
